Homosexual Bible Quotes

By Hays' reasoning, penetrating a rectum with a penis is a violation of how God meant humans to function. However, penetrating a human body with a sword, a common way to kill people in biblical times, is acceptable. Apparently human bodies were designed to be penetrated by metal implements, but not by flesh.

Love has no gender - compassion has no religion - character has no race.

The next time believers tell you that 'separation of church and state' does not appear in our founding document, tell them to stop using the word 'trinity.' The word 'trinity' appears nowhere in the bible. Neither does Rapture, or Second Coming, or Original Sin. If they are still unfazed (or unphrased), by this, then add Omniscience, Omnipresence, Supernatural,Transcendence, Afterlife, Deity, Divinity, Theology, Monotheism, Missionary, Immaculate Conception, Christmas, Christianity, Evangelical, Fundamentalist, Methodist, Catholic, Pope, Cardinal, Catechism, Purgatory, Penance, Transubstantiation, Excommunication, Dogma, Chastity, Unpardonable Sin, Infallibility, Inerrancy, Incarnation, Epiphany, Sermon, Eucharist, the Lord's Prayer, Good Friday, Doubting Thomas, Advent, Sunday School, Dead Sea, Golden Rule, Moral, Morality, Ethics, Patriotism, Education, Atheism, Apostasy, Conservative (Liberal is in), Capital Punishment, Monogamy, Abortion, Pornography, Homosexual, Lesbian, Fairness, Logic, Republic, Democracy, Capitalism, Funeral, Decalogue, or Bible.

Either you are homophobic or you are a human - you cannot be both.

Being homosexual is no more abnormal than being lefthanded.

Satanism condones any type of sexual activity which properly satisfies your individual desires- be it heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, or even asexual, if you choose. Satanism also sanctions any fetish or deviation which will enhance your sex-life, so long as it involves no one who does not wish to be involved.

Jesus didn't fight against what was wrong. But he fought for what was right.

In the unification of two minds, orientation of sexuality is irrelevant.

Homosexuals are not made, they are born.

I like how you call homosexuality an abomination." "I don't say homosexuality's an abomination, Mr. President, the bible does." "Yes it does. Leviticus-" "18:22" "Chapter in verse. I wanted to ask you a couple questions while I had you here. I'm interested in selling my youngest daughter into slavery as sanctioned in exodus 21:7. She's a Georgetown sophomore, speaks fluent Italian, always cleared the table when it was her turn. What would a good price for her be? While thinking about that can I ask another? My chief of staff, Leo Mcgary,insists on working on the sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly says he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself or is it ok to call the police? Here's one that's really important, cause we've got a lot of sports fans in this town. Touching the skin of a dead pig makes one unclean, Leviticus 11:7. If they promise to wear gloves, can the Washington Red Skins still play football? Can Notre Dame? Can West Point? does the whole town really have to be together to stone my brother John for planting different crops side by side? Can I burn my mother in a small family gathering for wearing garments made from two different threads?

Today's young people have gay friends whom they love. If they view the church as an unsafe for them, a place more focused on politics than on people, we just might be raising the most anti-Christian generation America has ever seen, a generation that believes they have to choose between loving and being Christian.

Chase, we don’t believe that homosexuality is a sin. The Bible was inspired by God, but it was written, translated, and interpreted by imperfect people just like us. This means that the passing of this sacred scripture from generation to generation and from culture to culture has been a bit like the “telephone game” you play at school. After thousands of years, it’s impossible to judge the original spirit of some scripture. We believe that when in doubt, mercy triumphs judgment. So your parents are Christians who study and pray and then carefully choose what we follow in the Bible, based on whether or not it matches our understanding of Jesus’s overall message.

As we reject God, we find ourselves craving what we are not naturally designed to do.

Homosexuality is immutable, irreversible and nonpathological.

We don't get to pick the age we will live in, and we don't get to choose all the struggles we will face. Faithfulness is ours to choose; the shape of faithfulness is God's to determine.

How can we pick and choose which parts of the Bible to follow? One thing is God’s will and another is just cultural differences? What if it’s all cultural? What if homosexuality or saving yourself for marriage is as outdated as women staying silent in church or Leviticus forbidding tattoos?

Can you imagine, somebody telling you, your love for your dearly beloved is a sin! Can you imagine, somebody telling you, women are inferior to men, and are meant only serve the men! Can you imagine, somebody telling you, a man can have multiple wives, and yet be deemed civilized! Here that somebody is a fundamentalist ape - a theoretical pest from the stone-age, that somehow managed to survive even amidst all the rise of reasoning and intellect.

Love God, and love your neighbor as yourself—that is the heart of the Christian message. Everything else is commentary.

In the name of anti-discrimination those who uphold moral values are discriminated against while those who violate such values receive affirmative action.

Our feelings matter. Our stories matter. Our friends matter. But ultimately we must search the Scriptures to see what matters most.

They took a bite from the forbidden fruit, and the fruit bit back.

the right conclusion can be handled in the wrong way. Focusing on other people’s sins, while ignoring our own, would be the wrong way.

President Josiah Bartlet: Good. I like your show. I like how you call homosexuality an abomination. Dr. Jenna Jacobs: I don't say homosexuality is an abomination, Mr. President. The Bible does. President Josiah Bartlet: Yes, it does. Leviticus. Dr. Jenna Jacobs: 18:22. President Josiah Bartlet: Chapter and verse. I wanted to ask you a couple of questions while I had you here. I'm interested in selling my youngest daughter into slavery as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. She's a Georgetown sophomore, speaks fluent Italian, always cleared the table when it was her turn. What would a good price for her be? While thinking about that, can I ask another? My Chief of Staff Leo McGarry insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly says he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself, or is it okay to call the police? Here's one that's really important 'cause we've got a lot of sports fans in this town: Touching the skin of a dead pig makes one unclean. Leviticus 11:7. If they promise to wear gloves, can the Washington Redskins still play football? Can Notre Dame? Can West Point? Does the whole town really have to be together to stone my brother John for planting different crops side by side? Can I burn my mother in a small family gathering for wearing garments made from two different threads? Think about those questions, would you? One last thing: While you may be mistaking this for your monthly meeting of the Ignorant Tight-Ass Club, in this building, when the President stands, nobody sits.

But the fact is that the gospel demands everything of all of us. If someone thinks the gospel has slotted into their life quite easily, without causing any major adjustments to their lifestyle or aspirations, it is likely that they have not really started following Jesus at all.

The Bible contains six admonishments to homosexuals and 362 admonishments to heterosexuals. That doesn't mean that God doesn't love heterosexuals. It's just that they need more supervision.

So how do you find out what God thinks? The Christian says, you look in the Bible. And the Bible tells us that God forbids homosexual acts. Therefore, they are wrong. So basically the reasoning goes like this: (1) We are all obligated to do God’s will. (2) God’s will is expressed in the Bible. (3) The Bible forbids homosexual behavior. (4) Therefore, homosexual behavior is against God’s will, or is wrong.

Nothing in the Bible encourages us to give sex the exalted status it has in our culture, as if finding our purpose, our identity, and our fulfillment all rest with what we can or cannot do with our private parts.

We can of course argue over what the Bible says about homosexuality, but one thing is utterly clear: Jesus teaches us to love people, not to hate them, not to make them feel hated, and not to stand by while that is happening. From the perspective of the New Testament there simply is no room for doubt on this. We know exactly where Jesus stands in this regard. He stands on the side of the least, the condemned, the vulnerable.

If someone thinks the gospel has somehow slotted into their life quite easily, without causing any major adjustments to their lifestyle or aspirations, it is likely that they have not really started following Jesus at all.

Do those people who hold up the Bible as an inspiration to moral rectitude have the slightest notion of what is actually written in it? The following offences merit the death penalty, according to Leviticus 20: cursing your parents; committing adultery; making love to your stepmother or your daughter-in-law; homosexuality; marrying a woman and her daughter; bestiality (and, to add injury to insult, the unfortunate beast is to be killed too).

It is not a kindness for a parent to allow a child to play with a scorpion or touch a hot radiator; nor is it a kindness for the church to give its blessing to forms of sexual expression that, as Paul notes, degrades the body created by God.

As we've seen way too many times throughout history, the meaning of the Bible can be twisted and manipulated by anyone with an agenda. When faced with this sort of distortion, it's helpful to recall that there are seven lines in the entire Bible about homosexuality, whereas there are hundreds, maybe thousands, about caring for the poor and outcast. Perspective is key.

It is the same for us all - 'whoever'. I am to deny myself, take up my cross and follow him. Every Christian is called to costly sacrifice. Denying yourself does not mean tweaking your behaviour here and there. It is saying 'no' to your deepest sense of who you are, for the sake of Christ. To take up a cross is to declare your life (as you have known it) forfeit. It is laying down your life for the very reason that your life, it turns out, is not yours at all. It belongs to Jesus. He made it. And through his death he has bought it. Ever since I have been open about my own experiences with homosexuality, a number of Christians have said something like this: 'the gospel must be harder for you than it is for me', as though I have more to give up than they do. But the fact is that the gospel demands everything out of all of us. If someone thinks the gospel has somehow slotted into their life quite easily, without causing any major adjustments to their lifestyle or aspirations, it is likely that they have not really started following Jesus at all.

When did it become okay for the people who hold the Bible to be God’s absolute truth to choose which parts of it to enforce, like the sections about homosexuality, and which parts to write off as not applying to us anymore, like the parts about slavery or polygamy?

But a flawed and erroneous Bible is no longer the authoritative Word of God. And that low view of Scripture has successively given license to liberal theologians, militant feminists, homosexuals, and many others intent on assaulting the authority and relevance of God’s Word.

First, if you are a homosexual or feel that inclination, keep yourself pure. If you are unmarried, you should practice abstinence from all sexual activity. I know this is difficult, but really what God is asking you to do is pretty much the same thing that he requires of all single people. That means not only keeping your body pure, but especially your mind. Just as heterosexual men should avoid pornography and fantasizing, you, too, need to keep your thought-life clean. Resist the temptation to rationalize sin by saying, “God made me this way.” God has made it very clear that He does not want you to indulge your desires, but to honor Him by keeping your mind and body pure. Finally, seek professional Christian counseling. With time and effort, you can come to enjoy normal, heterosexual relations with your spouse. There is hope.

The problem with the Bible, the Qur'an, the Torah - or any sacred text - as an authority is that so much depends on how the text is read and the interests of the reader. The Bible has been used to justify slavery, apartheid, the suppression of women, the 'evils' of sexuality, the 'evils' of homosexuality, a male-only priesthood, the denial of any priests at all, the supremacy of the Pope, the irrelevance of the Pope, the authority of the Church, a denial of the authority of the Church, a feminist agenda, war, pacifism and almost every other position that people may wish to hold.

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

Well, Espen, you're no drug addict, so why do you beg?" "Because it's my mission to be mirror for mankind so that they can see which actions are great and which are small." "And which are great?" Espen sighed in despair, as though weary of repeating the obvious. "Charity. Sharing and helping your neighbor. The Bible deals with nothing else. In fact, you have to search extremely hard to find anything about sex before marriage, abortion, homosexuality, or a woman's right to speak in public. But, of course, it is easier for Pharisees to talk aloud about subordinate clauses than to describe and perform the great actions the Bible leaves us in no doubt about: You have to give half of what you own to someone who has nothing. Thousands of people are dying every day without hearing the words of God because these Christians will not let go of their earthly goods. I'm giving them a chance to reflect.

The biblical teaching is consistent and unambiguous: homosexual activity is not God’s will for his people. Silence in the face of such clarity is not prudence, and hesitation in light of such frequency is not patience. The Bible says more than enough about homosexual practice for us to say something too.

I didn't know that homosexuality was wrong until I read it in the Bible.

Theological Seminary, points out that the sin of Sodom is mentioned several times elsewhere in the Bible, but never in connection with homosexual acts.

My Bible doesn’t differentiate between homosexuals and heterosexuals,” Buck said. “It may call practicing homosexuals sinners, but it also calls heterosexual sex outside of marriage sinful.

As Christians we ought to fear being on the wrong side of the holy, apostolic, and universal church more than we fear being on the wrong side of discredited assumptions about progress and enlightenment.

known as the Wesleyan Quadrilateral: “Wesley believed that the living core of the Christian faith was revealed in Scripture, illumined by tradition, vivified in personal experience, and confirmed by reason.

Far from being an unloving act, a sensitive refusal to condone homosexual conduct is the responsible and loving thing to do. The church deceives the homosexual by affirming a lifestyle that God deems to be sin.

Our feelings matter. Our stories matter. Our friends matter. But ultimately we must search the Scriptures to see what matters most. Don’t discount the messenger as a bigot if your real problem is with the Bible.

In fact, as I will show in the next chapter, the Bible contains an extravagant welcome for sexual minorities. In church governance, our confessions and Book of Order embody a trajectory of evergreater inclusiveness.

To begin with, there is an almost compulsive promiscuity associated with homosexual behavior. 75% of homosexual men have more than 100 sexual partners during their lifetime. More than half of these partners are strangers. Only 8% of homosexual men and 7% of homosexual women ever have relationships lasting more than three years. Nobody knows the reason for this strange, obsessive promiscuity. It may be that homosexuals are trying to satisfy a deep psychological need by sexual encounters, and it just is not fulfilling. Male homosexuals average over 20 partners a year. According to Dr. Schmidt, The number of homosexual men who experience anything like lifelong fidelity becomes, statistically speaking, almost meaningless. Promiscuity among homosexual men is not a mere stereotype, and it is not merely the majority experience—it is virtually the only experience. Lifelong faithfulness is almost non-existent in the homosexual experience. Associated with this compulsive promiscuity is widespread drug use by homosexuals to heighten their sexual experiences. Homosexuals in general are three times as likely to be problem drinkers as the general population. Studies show that 47% of male homosexuals have a history of alcohol abuse and 51% have a history of drug abuse. There is a direct correlation between the number of partners and the amount of drugs consumed. Moreover, according to Schmidt, “There is overwhelming evidence that certain mental disorders occur with much higher frequency among homosexuals.” For example, 40% of homosexual men have a history of major depression. That compares with only 3% for men in general. Similarly 37% of female homosexuals have a history of depression. This leads in turn to heightened suicide rates. Homosexuals are three times as likely to contemplate suicide as the general population. In fact homosexual men have an attempted suicide rate six times that of heterosexual men, and homosexual women attempt suicide twice as often as heterosexual women. Nor are depression and suicide the only problems. Studies show that homosexuals are much more likely to be pedophiles than heterosexual men. Whatever the causes of these disorders, the fact remains that anyone contemplating a homosexual lifestyle should have no illusions about what he is getting into. Another well-kept secret is how physically dangerous homosexual behavior is.

But before we get up close to the trees, we should step back and make sure we are gazing upon the same forest. As is so often the case with controversial matters, we will never agree on the smaller subplots if it turns out we aren’t even telling the same story. The Bible says something about homosexuality. I hope everyone can agree on at least that much. And I hope everyone can agree that the Bible is manifestly not a book about homosexuality.

In 1976 the PCUS General Assembly adopted “A Declaration of Faith” that said, “When we encounter apparent tensions and conflicts in what Scripture teaches us to believe and do, the final appeal must be to the authority of Christ.”50

So the Naaman Effect is when we receive grace and peace from God to live in a state of misalignment. We own new convictions, yet we keep them to ourselves as we attempt to stay in community with people who think and feel differently.

The Holy Spirit could have chosen anyone to be the first Gentile convert. And the Holy Spirit chose a black, African, sexual minority who showed faith. McNeill writes, “I like to think of this eunuch as the first baptized gay Christian.”20

The PJC quoted the Confession of 1967: “Congregations, individuals, or groups of Christians who exclude, dominate, or patronize their fellowmen [sic], however subtly, resist the Spirit of God and bring contempt on the faith which they profess.

It’s hard not to conclude from a straightforward reading of Genesis 1–2 that the divine design for sexual intimacy is not any combination of persons, or even any type of two persons coming together, but one man becoming one flesh with one woman.

When we recognize that all of us, of whatever sexual orientation, are created by God, that we are all fallen sinners, and that we can all be redeemed by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, homosexuality will no longer be a divisive issue.

The Heidelberg Catechism, Question and Answer 22: Q. “What, then, must a Christian believe? A. All that is promised us in the gospel, a summary of which is taught us in the articles of the Apostles’ Creed, our universally acknowledged confession of faith.

It might be instructive to try seeing things from the perspective of, say, a God-fearing hard-working rural-Midwestern military vet. It's not that hard. Imaging gazing through his eyes at the world of MTV and the content of video games, at the gross sexualization of children's fashions, at Janet Jackson flashing her aureole on what's supposed to be a holy day. Imagine you're him having to explain to your youngest what oral sex is and what it's got to do with a US president. Ads for penis enlargers and HOT WET SLUTS are popping up out of nowhere on your family's computer. Your kids' school is teaching them WWII and Vietnam in terms of Japanese internment and the horrors of My Lai. Homosexuals are demanding holy matrimony; your doctor's moving away because he can't afford the lawsuit insurance; illegal aliens want driver's licenses; Hollywood elites are bashing America and making millions from it; the president's ridiculed for reading his Bible; priests are diddling kids left and right. Shit, the country's been directly attacked, and people aren't supporting our commander in chief.

God's truth!' one side shouts. 'More loving!' comes the response. 'God's truth!' 'More loving!' 'God's truth!' 'More loving!' But there shouldn't be a clash between 'God's truth' and 'More loving.' In the Bible, Truth and Love are two sides of the same coin. You can't have one without the other. God's Truth is all about God's Love for us and the Love we ought to have for one another. We are being untrue to that Truth if we treat people unlovingly. And we are missing out on the full extent of that Love if we try to divorce it from Ultimate Truth.

This need not be the case. When Christians read the Bible through the lens of Jesus’ gracious life and ministry, they will be able to see lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people as their sisters and brothers, faced with all the usual human problems, and loved equally by God.

The gospel that Paul is proclaiming in Romans does not center on the issue of sexuality. It focuses on the universality of sin and the free grace of salvation through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. That is the essence of the Christian message. Idolatry, Not Sexuality

In 2004 televangelist Jimmy Swaggart announced to his audience, “I’ve never seen a man in my life I wanted to marry…. And I’m gonna be blunt and plain, if one ever looks at me like that, I’m going to kill him and tell God he died…. In case anybody doesn’t know, God calls it an abomination.

Whatever theory of interpretation people use powerfully affects how they understand Scripture. Common Sense philosophy and Turretin’s theology allowed seemingly good, intelligent, devout people to ignore the basic principles and lessons of Scripture and to brutalize other human beings by enslaving them.

9Or do you not know that the unrighteous [2] will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived:  x neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, [3] 10nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.

Jesus himself may have been subject to many of the same slurs as sexual minorities in his culture. The men around him wanted to talk about the law. Instead, Jesus showed that God’s grace and love extends to everyone—especially those people who are disenfranchised, overlooked, or forgotten by traditional culture.

In addition to these physical problems, sexually transmitted diseases are rampant among the homosexual population. 75% of homosexual men carry one or more sexually transmitted diseases, wholly apart from AIDS. These include all sorts of non-viral infections like gonorrhea, syphilis, bacterial infections, and parasites. Also common among homosexuals are viral infections like herpes and hepatitis B (which afflicts 65% of homosexual men), both of which are incurable, as well as hepatitis A and anal warts, which afflict 40% of homosexual men. And I haven’t even included AIDS. Perhaps the most shocking and frightening statistic is that, leaving aside those who die from AIDS, the life expectancy for a homosexual male is about 45 years of age. That compares to a life expectancy of around 70 for men in general. If you include those who die of AIDS, which now infects 30% of homosexual men, the life expectancy drops to 39 years of age. So I think a very good case can be made out on the basis of generally accepted moral principles that homosexual behavior is wrong. It is horribly self-destructive and injurious to another person. Thus, wholly apart from the Bible’s prohibition, there are sound, sensible reasons to regard homosexual activity as wrong.

Neo-orthodoxy’s defining insight, taken from the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, was that people and God are known by personal encounter, not by rational analysis.11 The revelation of God comes not in an inspired book, but in the person of Jesus Christ, who is God incarnate.12 The Bible is a witness to Christ.

Paul is not talking in Romans 1:26–27 about a violation of the order of creation. In Paul’s vocabulary, physis (nature) is not a synonym for ktisis (creation). In speaking about what is “natural,” Paul is merely accepting the conventional view of people and how they ought to behave in first-century Hellenistic-Jewish culture.

Hodge’s attitude toward women centered in his understanding of marriage and family values. As he wrote, “Marriage is a divine institution ordained by God for His glory and the happiness of men.” While a husband in the marriage ceremony had to promise to be “faithful and loving,” the woman had in addition to promise to be “obedient.

The move here is radical. While there are many places where scripture reinterprets or reactualizes the tradition, using an old word to say something surprisingly new to a new generation, at least one scholar [Herbert Donner] counts this as the only case in the Old Testament of the outright abrogation of one divine word by another.”19

Luckily for the people she helped, my mother was gloriously inconsistent. She lived according to the more enlightened parts of the Bible and ignored the rest. For instance, no matter what she claimed the Bible taught about homosexuality, Mom acted as if being born gay was just another way to be human. She provided refuge, love and compassion to many gay

To justify their inability to cope with cultural change, they turn to the Bible and proof-text, that is, they take verses out of the context of the whole and make universal laws of them. Instead of reading the Bible through the lens of Jesus’ life and ministry, many have again tried to make the Bible a law book, which they then apply selectively, only to those with whom they disagree.

The first category—those eunuchs who have been so from birth—is the closest description we have in the Bible of what we understand today as a homosexual.”7 It is clear that Jesus did not see humanity as universally heterosexual. Jesus recognized and acknowledged many types of sexual difference—even in a society in which such difference would have been downplayed, hidden, or even punished.

Darkness must not be confused with light. Grace must not be confused with license. Unchecked sin must not be confused with the good news of justification apart from works of the law. Far from treating sexual deviance as a lesser ethical issue, the New Testament sees it as a matter for excommunication (1 Corinthians 5), separation (2 Cor. 6:12–20), and a temptation for perverse compromise (Jude 3–16).

New Testament scholar Richard Hays notes that there is not “an exact equivalent for ‘homosexual’ in either Greek or Hebrew.”22 The Bible, in its original Hebrew and Greek, has no concept like our present understanding of a person with a homosexual orientation. Indeed, the concept of an ongoing sexual attraction to people of one’s own sex did not exist in European or American language until the late nineteenth century.23

In the PC(USA) Book of Confessions, A Brief Statement of Faith made explicit the equality of all people: “In sovereign love God created the world good and makes everyone equally in God’s image, male and female, of every race and people, to live as one community.”60 A Brief Statement of Faith also provided clear confessional warrant for the ordination of women, declaring that the Spirit “calls women and men to all the ministries of the Church.

it is significant that the eunuch was reading the prophet Isaiah. Theodore Jennings Jr., professor of biblical and constructive theology at Chicago Theological Seminary, writes at length about the significance of this fact. “The Isaiah being read by the eunuch is the same prophet who specifically includes eunuchs in the divine dispensation. Moreover the passage the eunuch was pondering is one that he may well have connected to his situation as a eunuch:

Near the end of the session, a slight, middle-aged man in a dress shirt approached the microphone. “I’m here to ask your forgiveness,” he said quietly. “I’ve been a pastor with a conservative denomination for more than thirty years, and I used to be an antigay apologist. I knew every argument, every Bible verse, every angle, and every position. I could win a debate with just about anyone, and I confess I yelled down more than a few ‘heretics’ in my time. I was absolutely certain that what I was saying was true and I assumed I’d defend that truth to death. But then I met a young lesbian woman who, over a period of many years, slowly changed my mind. She is a person of great faith and grace, and her life was her greatest apologetic.” The man began to sob into his hands. “I’m so sorry for what I did to you,” he finally continued. “I might not have hurt any of you directly, but I know my misguided apologetics, and then my silent complicity, probably did more damage than I can ever know. I am truly sorry and I humbly repent of my actions. Please forgive me.” “We forgive you!” someone shouted from up front. But the pastor held up his hand and then continued to speak. “And if things couldn’t get any weirder,” he said with a nervous laugh, “I was dropping my son off at school the other day—he’s a senior in high school—and we started talking about this very issue. When I told him that I’d recently changed my mind about homosexuality, he got really quiet for a minute and then he said, ‘Dad, I’m gay.’ ” Nearly everyone in the room gasped. “Sometimes I wonder if these last few years of studying, praying, and rethinking things were all to prepare me for that very moment,” the pastor said, his voice quivering. “It was one of the most important moments of my life. I’m so glad I was ready. I’m so glad I was ready to love my son for who he is.

9Or do you not know that the unrighteous [2] will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived:  x neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, [3] 10nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11And  y such were some of you. But  z you were washed,  a you were sanctified,  b you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

The late Francis Schaeffer, one of the wisest and most influential Christian thinkers of the twentieth century, warned of this exact trend just a few months before his death in 1984. In his book The Great Evangelical Disaster he included a section called “The Feminist Subversion,” in which he wrote: There is one final area that I would mention where evangelicals have, with tragic results, accommodated to the world spirit of this age. This has to do with the whole area of marriage, family, sexual morality, feminism, homosexuality, and divorce. . . . The key to understanding extreme feminism centers around the idea of total equality, or more properly the idea of equality without distinction. . . . the world spirit in our day would have us aspire to autonomous absolute freedom in the area of male and female relationships—to throw off all form and boundaries in these relationships and especially those boundaries taught in the Scriptures. . . . Some evangelical leaders, in fact, have changed their views about inerrancy as a direct consequence of trying to come to terms with feminism. There is no other word for this than accommodation. It is a direct and deliberate bending of the Bible to conform to the world spirit of our age at the point where the modern spirit conflicts with what the Bible teaches.2 My argument in the following pages demonstrates that what Schaeffer predicted so clearly twenty-two years ago is increasingly coming true in evangelicalism today. It is a deeply troubling trend.

I would define an evangelical theologically as someone who accepts three propositions: (1) People can and should have a personal relationship with God through trust in Jesus Christ. (2) The Bible is the final authority for salvation and living the Christian life. (3) God’s grace in Jesus Christ is such good news that everyone should hear about it. If you add something to these affirmations, you are becoming denominational or fundamentalist. If you take away one of these affirmations, you could still be a Christian, but you would not be an evangelical.

At first glance, it might appear that the consensus of the church has been against the full acceptance of people who are homosexual. We must remember, however, that until very recently it was the practice of the Western church to deny full rights of membership to people of color and to women. Past practice is not necessarily a recommendation for future faithfulness. We must continue to distinguish between the culturally conditioned practices of the church and the essential teachings of the church found in its creedal statements, which are the “rule of faith.

Walter Wink, professor of New Testament at Auburn Seminary, states: The crux of the matter, it seems to me, is simply that the Bible has no sexual ethic. Instead, it exhibits a variety of sexual mores, some of which changed over the thousand-year span of biblical history. Mores are unreflective customs accepted by a given community. Many of the practices that the Bible prohibits, we allow, and many that it allows, we prohibit. The Bible knows only a love ethic, which is constantly being brought to bear on whatever sexual mores are dominant in any given country, or culture, or period.43

So, once more, the question is: Does the Bible forbid homosexual behavior? Well, I’ve already said that it does. The Bible is so realistic! You might not expect it to mention a topic like homosexual behavior, but in fact there are six places in the Bible—three in the Old Testament and three in the New Testament—where this issue is directly addressed—not to mention all the passages dealing with marriage and sexuality which have implications for this issue. In all six of these passages homosexual acts are unequivocally condemned. In Leviticus 18.22 it says that it is an abomination for a man to lie with another man as with a woman. In Lev. 20.13 the death penalty is prescribed in Israel for such an act, along with adultery, incest, and bestiality. Now sometimes homosexual advocates make light of these prohibitions by comparing them to prohibitions in the Old Testament against having contact with unclean animals like pigs. Just as Christians today don’t obey all of the Old Testament ceremonial laws, so, they say, we don’t have to obey the prohibitions of homosexual actions. But the problem with this argument is that the New Testament reaffirms the validity of the Old Testament prohibitions of homosexual behavior, as we’ll see below. This shows they were not just part of the ceremonial laws of the Old Testament, which were done away with, but were part of God’s everlasting moral law. Homosexual behavior is in God’s sight a serious sin. The third place where homosexual acts are mentioned in the Old Testament is the horrifying story in Genesis 19 of the attempted gang rape of Lot’s visitors by the men of Sodom, from which our word sodomy derives. God destroyed the city of Sodom because of their wickedness. Now if this weren’t enough, the New Testament also forbids homosexual behavior.

Jesus understood the sacred texts and God’s intention for humanity. So when we read the Bible through the lens of Jesus’ redemptive life and ministry, we are better able to discern God’s revelation. Jesus welcomed every kind of person into God’s community—especially the outcast, the alien, the marginalized, the forgotten, and the foreigner. Reading the Bible through the lens of Jesus’ redemptive life and ministry we see over and over again, God’s radically inclusive grace that welcomes all who have faith. Let us examine three passages that show how Jesus’ teachings illuminate God’s extravagant welcome.

1995, for example, on the occasion of its 150th anniversary, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) officially apologized for “condoning” racism. The SBC resolution in part stated, “We apologize to all African Americans for condoning and/or perpetuating individual and systemic racism in our lifetime, and we genuinely repent of racism of which we have been guilty, whether consciously or unconsciously.” Gary Frost, a black pastor who is a SBC second vice president, formally accepted the apology. He said, “We pray that the genuineness of your repentance will be reflected in your attitudes and in your actions.”1

Over the years, “black theology” has brought profound new insights about race to our understanding of the biblical texts. “Feminist theology” opened our eyes to the prominent role of women in the Bible. “Liberation theology” focused our attention on the Bible’s liberating gospel for the poor and oppressed. Today, “queer theology” is illuminating our understanding of the role of sexual minorities in the biblical text. In each case, the theological insights of formerly marginalized groups have enriched the whole church’s understanding of Scripture. In the process, these liberating theologies have helped to bring many Christians into a closer relationship with God.

I think that the contemporary model of Christian marriage is a good one for heterosexual people: one man and one woman should marry for life and, if they choose, bear and care for children. This model is not found in Genesis, however. Moreover, it took Western society many centuries to come to it,91 and even so, half of the heterosexual people in American society do not follow it. On the other hand, many Christian gay and lesbian people have committed themselves to one lifelong partner. Many care for children, and some that I know have adopted children with special needs. They seem to have gotten the point of the contemporary Christian model of marriage and are living it out.

A rant is not an idea, and feeling hurt is not an argument. To be sure, how we make each other feel is not unimportant. But in our age of perpetual outrage, we must make clear that offendedness is not proof of the coherence or plausibility of any argument. Now is not the time for fuzzy thinking. Now is not the time to shy away from careful definitions. Now is not the time to let moods substitute for logic. These are difficult issues. These are personal issues. These are complicated issues. We cannot chart our ethical course by what feels better. We cannot build our theology based on what makes us look nicer. We can’t abdicate intellectual responsibility because smart people disagree.

When Christians maintain that homosexual behavior is sinful or that marriage can only be between a man and a woman, you can count on a chorus of voices declaring confidently that these old views are on the “wrong side of history.” The phrase is meant to sting. It conjures up pictures of segregationists clinging to their disgusting notions of racial supremacy. We are meant to think of the church persecuting Galileo or of flat-earthers warning Columbus about sailing off the edge of the world. The phrase seeks to win an argument by not having one. It says, “Your ideas are so laughably backward, they don’t deserve to be taken seriously. In time everyone who ever held them will be embarrassed.

Mona West remarks on the importance of this text for the LGBT community: It is a significant story for queer people of faith because the eunuch is a sexual minority in the context of Jewish religion during this time…. Queer people of faith would read this story as our own. We are kept from full participation in the Church because of what is perceived as our outsider sexual status. We have been denied ordination and communion. Our relationships are also not blessed by the Church. At best we are allowed to attend worship if we “leave our sexuality at the door.” We are allowed marginal participation in the body of Christ if we adopt a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, or if we promise not to be a “practising” homosexual.

Moreover, it seems plausible that the word “eunuch” could have been used by Jesus’ opponents as a derogatory epithet against him and his followers “to cast aspersions on their masculinity.”10 Theologian Halvor Moxnes suggests that “‘eunuch’ in Matthew’s contextual world could have been a slur leveled against those young men in the Jesus Movement who left home and household and followed him, thus putting themselves ‘out of place’ and ‘represent[ing] a provocation to the very order of the community.’”11 As an unmarried man in a traditional culture, Jesus may have been subject to many of the same slurs as people who were sexual minorities in his culture. Yet, as Moxnes observes, “Jesus picked up the word [eunuch] and accepted it.”12

Or is it the opposite-that the US has moved so far and so fast toward cultural permissiveness that we've reached a kind of apsidal point? It might be instructive to try seeing things from the perspective of, say, a God-fearing hard-working rural-Midwestern military vet. It's not that hard. Imagine gazing through his eyes at the world of MTV and the content of video games, at the gross sexualization of children's fashions, at Janet Jackson flashing her aureole on what's supposed to be a holy day. Imagine you're him having to explain to your youngest what oral sex is and what it's got to do with a US president. Ads for penis enlargers and Hot Wet Sluts are popping up out of nowhere on your family's computer. Your kids' school is teaching them WWII and Vietnam in terms of Japanese internment and the horrors of My Lai. Homosexuals are demanding holy matrimony; your doctor's moving away because he can't afford the lawsuit insurance; illegal aliens want driver's licenses; Hollywood elites are bashing America and making millions from it; the president's ridiculed for reading his Bible; priests are diddling kids left and right. Shit, the country's been directly attacked, and people aren't supporting our commander in chief. Assume for a moment that it's not silly to see things this man's way. What cogent, compelling, relevant message can the center and left offer him? Can we bear to admit that we've actually helped set him up to hear "We 're better than they are" not as twisted and scary but as refreshing and redemptive and true? If so, then now what?

As a commissioner (delegate) to the Old School Presbyterian General Assembly in 1845, Thornwell wrote to his wife, “I have no doubts but that the Assembly, by a very large majority, will declare slavery not to be sinful, will assert that it is sanctioned by the word of God, that it is purely a civil relation with which the Church, as such, has no right to interfere, and that abolitionism is essentially wicked, disorganizing, and ruinous.”7 In an 1850 sermon Thornwell painted a clear picture that Christians supported slavery and atheists opposed it: “The parties in this conflict are not merely Abolitionists and Slaveholders; they are Atheists, Socialists, Communists, Red Republicans, Jacobins on the one side, and the friends of order and regulated freedom on the other. In one word, the world is the battleground—Christianity and atheism the combatants; and the progress of humanity the stake.”8

Endorsement of the ordination of women is not the final step in the process, however. If we look at the denominations that approved women’s ordination from 1956–1976, we find that several of them, such as the United Methodist Church and the United Presbyterian Church (now called the Presbyterian Church–USA), have large contingents pressing for (a) the endorsement of homosexual conduct as morally valid and (b) the approval of homosexual ordination. In fact, the Episcopal Church on August 5, 2003, approved the appointment of an openly homosexual bishop.16 In more liberal denominations such as these, a predictable sequence has been seen (though so far only the Episcopal Church has followed the sequence to point 7): 1. abandoning biblical inerrancy 2. endorsing the ordination of women 3. abandoning the Bible’s teaching on male headship in marriage 4. excluding clergy who are opposed to women’s ordination 5. approving homosexual conduct as morally valid in some cases 6. approving homosexual ordination 7. ordaining homosexuals to high leadership positions in the denomination17 I am not arguing that all egalitarians are liberals. Some denominations have approved women’s ordination for other reasons, such as a long historical tradition and a strong emphasis on gifting by the Holy Spirit as the primary requirement for ministry (as in the Assemblies of God), or because of the dominant influence of an egalitarian leader and a high priority on relating effectively to the culture (as in the Willow Creek Association). But it is unquestionable that theological liberalism leads to the endorsement of women’s ordination. While not all egalitarians are liberals, all liberals are egalitarians. There is no theologically liberal denomination or seminary in the United States today that opposes women’s ordination. Liberalism and the approval of women’s ordination go hand in hand.

The early church theologian Tertullian in the third century identified Eve as the origin of sin in a manner that has been repeated endlessly: “You are the Devil’s gateway. You are the unsealer of that forbidden tree. You are the first deserter of the divine Law. You are she who persuaded him whom the Devil was not valiant enough to attack. You destroyed so easily God’s image of man. On account of your desert, that is death, even the Son of God had to die.”36 Traditional Christian culture had long portrayed woman as a sexual temptress. She was thought to have little control over her primal sexual urges. Men were constantly warned to avoid women lest they be seduced and brought down by them.37 In the nineteenth century, women were spoken of more gently but nonetheless kept carefully segregated from any place of power. America was shifting from an agrarian to an industrial society. As men left farms for factories, the role of women changed. Now they were not colaborers in the fields, but were given a separate sphere from men, the home, with care of children the foremost priority.

Perhaps the greatest irony in the marriage debate is that selfdescribed born-again Christians, a segment of the population that is often vocal about supporting bans on same-sex marriage, seem to exhibit greater problems with their own marriages. Evangelical pollster George Barna found that during the 1990s born-again Christians had higher divorce rates than non-Christians.79 Professor Brad Wilcox, a Christian sociologist who specializes in family issues, notes that “compared with the rest of the population, conservative Protestants are more likely to divorce.” He also points out that divorce rates are higher in the southern United States, where conservative Protestants make up a higher percentage of the population.80 The states of Kentucky, Mississippi, and Arkansas, which voted overwhelmingly for constitutional amendments to ban same-sex marriage in 2004, had three of the highest divorce rates in the United States. In contrast, the state with the lowest divorce rate is Massachusetts, a state whose Supreme Court has ruled in favor of gay marriage.81 There is clearly a disconnect between the problems facing heterosexual marriages in the United States and the conservatives’ proposed solution of banning same-sex marriage.

What is instructive about these examples is that a similar pattern is emerging today regarding people who are homosexual. Those who oppose homosexuality claim that (1) the Bible records God’s judgment against the sin of homosexuality from its first mention in Scripture; (2) people who are homosexual are somehow inferior in moral character and incapable of rising to the level of full heterosexual “Christian civilization”; and (3) people who are homosexual are willfully sinful, often sexually promiscuous and threatening, and deserve punishment for their own acts. The church is once again repeating the mistakes of the past. And, as I will show in subsequent chapters, the reason why many people fail to apply Jesus’ gospel to the issue of homosexuality is that they are once again using a “commonsense” method of biblical interpretation and are following the lead of fundamentalist theologians whose methods are similar to those of Turretin. We are thankful that most Christians no longer believe in racial and gender hierarchy. Why? What changed our minds? How was the church able to change? In the next chapter we will review the way in which a new, Christ-centered approach to biblical interpretation carried forth the best insights of the dissenting abolitionists and expanded and applied them. This christological approach, which used the whole Bible, with Jesus as its central character and interpreter, enabled the church to change its mind and heart on issues of race and women. Let us examine this new approach.

May God’s people never eat rabbit or pork (Lev. 11:6–7)? May a man never have sex with his wife during her monthly period (Lev. 18:19) or wear clothes woven of two kinds of materials (Lev. 19:19)? Should Christians never wear tattoos (Lev. 19:28)? Should those who blaspheme God’s name be stoned to death (Lev. 24:10–24)? Ought Christians to hate those who hate God (Ps. 139:21–22)? Ought believers to praise God with tambourines, cymbals, and dancing (Ps. 150:4–5)? Should Christians encourage the suffering and poor to drink beer and wine in order to forget their misery (Prov. 31:6–7)? Should parents punish their children with rods in order to save their souls from death (Prov. 23:13–14)? Does much wisdom really bring much sorrow and more knowledge more grief (Eccles. 1:18)? Will becoming highly righteous and wise destroy us (Eccles. 7:16)? Is everything really meaningless (Eccles. 12:8)? May Christians never swear oaths (Matt. 5:33–37)? Should we never call anyone on earth “father” (Matt. 23:9)? Should Christ’s followers wear sandals when they evangelize but bring no food or money or extra clothes (Mark 6:8–9)? Should Christians be exorcising demons, handling snakes, and drinking deadly poison (Mark 16:15–18)? Are people who divorce their spouses and remarry always committing adultery (Luke 16:18)? Ought Christians to share their material goods in common (Acts 2:44–45)? Ought church leaders to always meet in council to issue definitive decisions on matters in dispute (Acts 15:1–29)? Is homosexuality always a sin unworthy of the kingdom of God (1 Cor. 6:9–10)? Should unmarried men not look for wives (1 Cor. 7:27) and married men live as if they had no wives (1 Cor. 7:29)? Is it wrong for men to cover their heads (1 Cor. 11:4) or a disgrace of nature for men to wear long hair (1 Cor. 11:14)? Should Christians save and collect money to send to believers in Jerusalem (1 Cor. 16:1–4)? Should Christians definitely sing psalms in church (Col. 3:16)? Must Christians always lead quiet lives in which they work with their hands (1 Thess. 4:11)? If a person will not work, should they not be allowed to eat (2 Thess. 3:10)? Ought all Christian slaves always simply submit to their masters (reminder: slavery still exists today) (1 Pet. 2:18–21)? Must Christian women not wear braided hair, gold jewelry, and fine clothes (1 Tim. 2:9; 1 Pet. 3:3)? Ought all Christian men to lift up their hands when they pray (1 Tim. 2:8)? Should churches not provide material help to widows who are younger than sixty years old (1 Tim. 5:9)? Will every believer who lives a godly life in Christ be persecuted (2 Tim. 3:12)? Should the church anoint the sick with oil for their healing (James 5:14–15)? The list of such questions could be extended.

Skiddy Cottontail—that was his name—and he defended LGBT equality. He was a flamboyant, colorful striped rabbit, with a headdress of a rainbow crown on his forehead. The radiance of his energy was violet, scarlet, and turquoise; as it represented his love for everyone. In the infancy years of his existence, he was abandoned—alone—unwanted—unloved; rejected by a world that disdains him. His father wished him deceased, his family exiled him from the warren, he was physically mistreated and preyed on by homophobic mobs in the surrounding community by Elephants—Hyenas—rats. They splashed spit at his face, advising him that God condemns homosexuality—as Christ did not. They would slam him on the pavement with their Bibles, strike him in the stomach with their feet, throw boulders of stone at his body: imploring—abusing—condemning him to a tyrannical sentence. Skiddy Cottontail thought that his existence would end with this case of cruelty—violence—assault that was perpetrated against him. He wanted to cease to exist— he wanted to commit the ultimate murder on himself—he no more desired to go on living— he realized hope is already deceased. He yearned to have the courage to emerge, to discover his bravery that would sever this spiral of sensations of oppression. Being a victim made him a slave to his opponent—as his adversaries have full leverage against him. Life has become a thread of light, which he longed to be liberated from its shackles. His demon—a voice that keeps blaming him for his crimes in the back of his mind—a glass that continually cracks in his heart—will keep breaking him if he does not devise a way out of this crisis. He was conscious by his innermost conviction that there was candlelight with a key that had the potential to illuminate a new chapter that will erase this trail of obscurity behind him. He sees a new horizon with greater comprehension, a journey that can give him the roses of affection than a handful of dead birds that his adversaries handed him along the way. The stunning blossoming trees did have a forest—beautiful greenery that was colorful like the rainbow in the Heavens. This home will embrace him with a warm embrace of open arms, where cruelty is forbidden; where adoration can forever abound. Dawn will know him when he arrives. No more hurricanes or strife will be here—no crying of a sad humanity are here—only a gift of harmony and devotion, beyond all explanation, will abide in the heart of Skiddy Cottontail—when he finds his way out from this opponent world for a beautiful existence that is called liberation. Skiddy Cottontail has found a happiness that can only bring him contentment like nothing in this hurtful world can. Find your own sense of balance like him, Skiddy Cottontail, and you will experience serenity as much as him.